Monday, January 17, 2011

Newest MTC address -Box #115, TAIW-TCG 0208

So big news for this week--around seven pm last Monday I got reassigned to a new district!! They will be leaving for Taiwan in about 2-3 weeks!!! So I will be part of that :). I checked with the health clinic and they said that SLC had received all my paper work, so hopefully the visa is coming along well. My branch president isn't sure how it will all work out, but one thing for sure is that when my district leaves, I will either be going with them or be sent on a reassigment calling to somewhere else. That would actually be kind of cool, so I don't really care.

Along with that I have a new companion! She is Sister Bray from Sandy, UT. She is 21 years old and went to hairschool. She is half Hawaiian and loves to dance. She currently has to wear a boot because she got tendonitis here at the MTC :(. So she might not leave on schedule if she still has the boot--they are hoping to have it off next week though! Anyway, she was in a threesome before (like me!) so now we are all just in twos. It was a little hard at first because they have all known each other for the past nine weeks, but they are all accepting and we've grown to love and include each other. There are two other sisters (Sister Okada and Sister Reece) and a companionship of three Elders (Elders Tate, Leatham, and Mohr). They are all amazing and soo much fun. We all get along great. Sister Okada is Japanese (but born in the USA) but was actually in Japan when she got her call. She will be serving in Canada, Mandarin speaking. The rest of us are all going to the Taiwan Taizhong mission!!!

With that, my mtc mailbox address has changed....though I still get the mail sent to the old district. It just makes it harder for me to get--I usually don't get it until the day after. So if you could change the address to mailbox #115, and then TAIW-TCG 0208. The rest of the address should stay the same. Also make a note that if you dearelder me, please put Melissa Brooke Smith. I had one letter sent to and Elder Brock Smith and I ended up getting it like three days later. But I still get them, so not a big deal. And that only happened once.

Hmm...other cool things: Elder Holland came and spoke to us on Tuesday for Devotional :) :). It was absolutely AMAZING!!!!!! He just spoke on the importance of our calling and the areas all missionaries need to improve on. Here are the three things he said to watch for: 1. Study better. Our investigators deserve who we can be through diligent study. 2. Missionaries don't prepare well. We can be so much more effective if we learn to plan with the Lord's goals in mind. 3. Teach for commitment. He said that we should never apologize for what we know. And we need to be persistant. He says his wife's Avon lady is more persistant than most missionaries are--that shouldn't be the case!! I loved his talk and it just makes we want to be better. We are the hope of Israel :).

Sister Davis sent me some cookies :)!!! Super sweet of her--totally made my day. I have seen Elder Gage here soo much! And I see Elder Hill several times a week too. I also taught my first ever lesson (on tithing) last Saturday!!! It was all in Chinese and so it was a little hard, but I thought we did really good! Always room to improve, but all is good.

No comments:

Post a Comment